The Titanic Murders - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,59

“but yes.”

“I’ll take a seat in the General Room.”

Andrews headed out as Futrelle approached the table and the burly young man rose.

The mystery writer asked, “Son, are you Alfred Davies?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. His voice was a pleasant tenor. He smiled shyly, displaying the crooked yellowed teeth so common to his class and country. “Did the captain send you, sir?”

“Yes, he did.”

“About the nurse them people is usin’?”

“That’s right.”

Davies let out an enormous sigh, shaking his head. “ ’Tis a relief, sir. I was afraid me message didn’t get to ’im… or that them above thought I was some lyin’ or some such.”

“My name is Jack Futrelle.” He extended his hand and the boy took and shook it; though Davies didn’t make a show of it, power lay in those hands and the arms and shoulders that went with them. “Let’s sit, shall we, son, and talk?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, and sat. “If you don’t mind my askin’, sir, what’s your job with the ship?”

“I’m working for Captain Smith on a matter of ship’s security.”

He nodded; the soft, childlike features seemed incongruous next to that massive frame. “I see, sir. Well, then, you’d be the man to talk to, then, sir.”

“You have information about the Allisons’ nanny—Alice Cleaver?”

“I don’t know the family’s name, sir, but if it’s the hatchet-faced wench I saw up on the boat deck, yes, sir, Alice Cleaver, sir.”

“You were up on the boat deck?”

“No! We stay on our side of the chain, sir. But from the well deck y’kin see up top. And it’s hard to mistake her, with that puss of hers, sir. Stop a clock, it would.”

Futrelle grinned. “Maybe so. But the rest of her could start a dead man’s heart beating again.”

Davies returned the grin. “I guess that’s why God made the dark, sir.”

From his inside suit coat pocket, Futrelle removed his gold-plated cigarette case, offered a Fatima to the boy, who refused, then lighted one up for himself. “Where do you hail from, son?”

“West Bromwich, sir—Harwood Street.”

“You boarded at Southampton, I take it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And are you bound for New York, or points west?”

“Points west, sir. Place called Michigan—Pontiac, Michigan.”

“What takes you there?”

“Me two brothers are working there, in the motorcar works. They say we can get jobs, too, good ones. Y’see, sir, we lost our jobs at the smelting works.”

Smelting again—Guggenheim’s business in First Class, Davies’s business in Third.

Davies went on: “Me old dad’s been a galvanizer since the Lord was in the manger. All us Davieses are ironworks men—puddlers, copula workers, the like. But times at home is gettin’ hard, sir—you’re American, sir?”

“Born and raised.”

“Is it the promised land, sir?”

Futrelle blew out a stream of smoke, laughing gently. “As close as anything on this earth might come, son.”

“I’m travelin’ with my other two brothers—John and Joseph—and we’ll send for our families, soon as we get settled.”

They were hitting it off well—young Davies treating Futrelle respectfully, but feeling comfortable enough to say whatever was on his mind. So Futrelle stepped forward gingerly into the next topic…

“Alfred—may I call you Alfred?”

“Me mates call me Fred.”

“All right, Fred.” But Futrelle didn’t give the boy leave to call him “Jack”: the writer liked the deference he was being paid; it gave him the upper hand.

“Fred, this information you have about Alice Cleaver.”

“Yes, sir?”

“The captain took your note to mean you expected to be paid for sharing what you know.”

“No, sir! This isn’t about money a’tall, sir. It’s about babbies.”

Futrelle suppressed a smile at the pronunciation, but the sincerity in the lad’s eyes was unmistakable.

“Well, then, tell me, son. What is it you know?”

He leaned forward, the cap on the table, his hands folded almost as if he were praying. “Dad and Mum raised me to read and write, sir. I may work with me hands, but I like to read a book now and again, and of course the newspaper.”

Encouraging words to the ears of a journalist like Futrelle, but he wasn’t sure what it had to do with anything.

“’Twas in January, must’ve been 1910, no—aught nine—such a terrible thing.” He was shaking his head; his eyes were wide and staring into bad memories. “Plate layers, workin’ the North London Railway, they found something terrible sad.”

“What did they find, son?”

“A babby. A dead babby… a poor pitiful dead boy, who they say was tossed from a movin’ train, the night afore. They arrested a Tottenham woman for the crime—it was her babby boy, y’see, her own son—and she wailed to the sky she was